After several launches from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate, the Hypersonic Zircon missile is planned to be launched from the head submarine of Project 885 (code “Ash”) “Severodvinsk”. EDNews reports citing Bulgarian Military News.
As part of the ongoing state tests of the Zircon shipboard missile system, hypersonic missile firing from an underwater position from the Severodvinsk submarine is planned,” the agency’s source said.
He clarified that it was originally intended to launch the Zircon from the head submarine of the improved project 885M (code “Yasen-M”) “Kazan”, but plans were revised in connection with the protracted tests of this ship.
The source did not specify a specific launch date from Severodvinsk, noting only that “three to four more firing from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate will be carried out before that.”
Zircon was first used from a ship in early January this year – Admiral Gorshkov fired a rocket from the Barents Sea at a distance of more than 500 km at a coastal target.
The plans for the creation of the ship complex “Zircon” with a hypersonic missile were announced in early 2011 by Vladimir Popovkin, deputy defense minister. According to media reports, flight tests of the rocket began in 2015. By the end of 2018, according to a TASS source, more than ten launches were completed.
In a message to the Federal Assembly in February 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Zircon rocket is capable of speeds of about 9 Machs and will be able to hit both surface and ground targets at a distance of more than 1 thousand km.
To launch the Zircon missiles, the universal ship firing complex (UKSK) 3S-14 is used. Such launchers, in particular, are equipped with frigates of project 22350, corvettes of project 20380, in the version for submarines – multi-purpose submarines of the Ash type.